I think you are venturing into your own post hoc fallacy here. Based on the publicly available information, I don't think we can safely conclude anything about whether glossy has fueled sales, or whether matte would have sold more.

It could be that the majority of buyers are completely indifferent to the issue but just want a Mac and that Apple's marketing and image have made it an increasingly compelling choice irrespective of the type of display. It could be that people are attracted to the glossy screens but, then, annoyed by them after living with them for a while. It could be that most people actually love the glossy screen and aren't bothered by it at all.

About the most we can safely conclude is that, for those who bought a glossy Mac, is that the glossy screen was not a deal breaker for them at the time of purchase -- i.e., they bought it with a glossy screen.

Um, if you'll reread the post I was quoting, I was just paraphrasing that, which was making a completely incoherent assertion that we could account for rising sales after Apple went glossy by noting that that's all they offered-- conflating the ideas of "sold more glossy screens" with "sold more computers."

I then dismissed out of hand an anticipated rebuttal (which was promptly made) that Apple could have sold even more computers over all, had but they offered a matte option, by noting that assertions like that are impossible to prove one way or the other and thus meaningless.

I don't think glossy screens account for rising Apple sales and I don't think a matte option would have increased those sales, if you got that impression. I don't think it's possible to know, which is what I said.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

One thing that really needs to happen is the death of the integrated graphics with shared memory. That is a piece of shit technology that refuses to go away.

I wonder though if direct memory access is actually an advantage for OpenCL processing.

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On a note, glossy screens suffer from glare, but looking at a matte finish screen after getting used to glossy is horrible. The picture quality in terms of contrast, brightness, etc. is just bad on the matte. Matte might be fine for road warriors. YMMV.

Screens are very personal but I have to agree with you that Matte screens are terrible for contrast, brightness and overall image quality.

Right now and for some time to come, the impact will be minimal for most users, no doubt about it. But if Apple is serious about pushing the new SL optimization technologies to exploit the hardware potential at its maximum, then it absolutely needs to introduce quad core computers for the masses (the Mac Pro is for really few people). Otherwise the developers will have little interest to invest in the new technologies.

And that, in fact, is a good point-- although my understanding is that GCD will improve dual core performance as well.

But as you say, when your OS has tech that very publicly touts multi-core performance and offloading tasks onto the GPU as strategic advantages, and these advantages require a bit of developer participation to come to fruition then, yes, it behooves you to start getting machines into customers hands that can make the most of such enhancements.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

Geez. It's these kinds of perceptions that would allow Apple to get away with using Core 2 Duo Again.

Bregalad, the MID-RANGE i7 Clarksfield quad-core (which has 8 threads with hyperthreading) sells for about the same price as the current Core 2 Duo's being put into the iMac (around $550).

Now you might say that the current Core 2 Duo's have way higher clock speeds, well... the new MID-RANGE i7 Clarksfield quad-cores have turbo boost, which can ramp the clock speeds of 1-2 of its cores up to 3+ GHz. Not to mention those two cores in the Clarksfield are hyperthreaded, and far more efficient/ powerful than the same clock speed in a Core 2 Duo.

Screens are very personal but I have to agree with you that Matte screens are terrible for contrast, brightness and overall image quality.

I just want something I can calibrate to CYMK printing. My 30" matte Cinema doesn't really work out so well in that respect. Colors are still too saturated and contrasty. But I guess I should just spring for the Ezio instead of complaining, although I'm not sure they all that accurate either.

There's only $300 dollars between the top of the line iMac and the bottom of the line Mac Pro (which, admittedly, does not include a display), so it's not like there's a whole lot of room there, price-wise. How much would you expect to pay for this machine?

You are correct. The price difference is only 300 bewtween the top of the line iMac with a
C2D 3 ghtz proc and the low end MacPro with a Quad 2.66 Xeon processor
My observation/complaint is that the iMac is a desktop with laptop parts. The MacPro is more along the lines of a server/workstation.
My ideal Mac Desktop solution would be a smaller MacPro with a quad C2D 2.66 or 3.06 processor.
I have a home built system with a quad C2D 2.4 with 4g ram and 3 internal hard drives and tripple boot Win Xp, OSX and Ubuntu Linux an OS for each hard drive.
The hardware is all the same. Apple stands out because of the balance of design and Mac OSX operating system.

It is just a "wish" if you will of mine to have that apple desktop that is somewhere between the MacPro and the iMac......my sweet spot for a price range would be 1200 to 1700 dollars.... But again this is just my dream APple desktop thats all....

Tallest Skil:

"Eventually Google will have their Afghanistan with Oracle and collapse" "The future is Apple, Google, and a third company that hasn't yet been created."

I just want something I can calibrate to CYMK printing. My 30" matte Cinema doesn't really work out so well in that respect. Colors are still too saturated and contrasty. But I guess I should just spring for the Ezio instead of complaining, although I'm not sure they all that accurate either.

They are better, and the prices for the Eizos have come down considerably.

It is just a "wish" if you will of mine to have that apple desktop that is somewhere between the MacPro and the iMac......my sweet spot for a price range would be 1200 to 1700 dollars.... But again this is just my dream APple desktop thats all....

Well, that's basically the same price range as the iMac line (byom) so it's hard to see how they could justify 2 lines in essentially the same price range. This is why I don't think it's reasonable to think that Apple's ever going to do this, one would cannibalize sales of the other, making both less profitable than the one, but effectively doubling development costs, and probably increasing production costs at least somewhat.

The only thing they could possibly do is produce a Mac Mini tower, but I doubt that anyone would be happy with the performance that would likely have.

Um, if you'll reread the post I was quoting, I was just paraphrasing that, which was making a completely incoherent assertion that we could account for rising sales after Apple went glossy by noting that that's all they offered-- conflating the ideas of "sold more glossy screens" with "sold more computers."

My apologies sir. In that case, I quite agree with you. I hope there will be no need for your seconds to call on me.

Well, that's basically the same price range as the iMac line (byom) so it's hard to see how they could justify 2 lines in essentially the same price range. This is why I don't think it's reasonable to think that Apple's ever going to do this, one would cannibalize sales of the other, making both less profitable than the one, but effectively doubling development costs, and probably increasing production costs at least somewhat.

The only thing they could possibly do is produce a Mac Mini tower, but I doubt that anyone would be happy with the performance that would likely have.

Saddly Anonymouse....you are correct in your assumptions. I don't think they will make the mid tower desktop I was describing. I would not buy a Mac Mini tower. The performance would not justify the purchase. But I would like to be able to change the video card once every year or so and not have to buy a whole new machine to accomplish that.....

Tallest Skil:

"Eventually Google will have their Afghanistan with Oracle and collapse" "The future is Apple, Google, and a third company that hasn't yet been created."

Why don't we all just petition Apple to sell us an unpopulated motherboard, then all we need to do is add RAM, a graphics card, HD and find a decent-looking case.

We could even ask Apple to sell us enclosures for self-assembly. Problem solved.

Amen. They would make with brisk business.

Quote:

Geez. It's these kinds of perceptions that would allow Apple to get away with using Core 2 Duo Again.

Bregalad, the MID-RANGE i7 Clarksfield quad-core (which has 8 threads with hyperthreading) sells for about the same price as the current Core 2 Duo's being put into the iMac (around $550).

Now you might say that the current Core 2 Duo's have way higher clock speeds, well... the new MID-RANGE i7 Clarksfield quad-cores have turbo boost, which can ramp the clock speeds of 1-2 of its cores up to 3+ GHz. Not to mention those two cores in the Clarksfield are hyperthreaded, and far more efficient/ powerful than the same clock speed in a Core 2 Duo.

But that wasn't my point at all. I said DESKTOP i7s have better performance per dollar than MOBILE i7s.

The Clarksfield mobile chips are the 1.6GHz 720QM and 1.73 GHz 820QM. They cost $364 and $546.

The Lynnfield desktop chips are the 2.8GHz 860 and 2.93GHz 870. They cost $284 and $562.

So Apple's obsession with energy consumption and 'thin' means we still get to pay more for less.

You know. Only people beyond redemption to the Apple 'cause' could lay claim that another side grade of core-duo with low end gpu to go would be acceptable because no one else knows what 'Apple buyers want' (like they, themselves are an expert on the matter...) It's beyond kool-aid.

There are quad-core i7 class options available now. Both in terms of desktop and laptop. It's simply not acceptable to be paying more, twice as much more for twice less the performance on the PC side. YEesh. Going intel was supposed to stop that PPC 'cpu lag' crap. Now we're getting it from Apple themselves. They seem to paint themselves into a corner. Offering an expensive laptop class cpu in a desktop machine when there are cheaper, more powerful options out there.

Saying duos are ok because aunty alice is ignorant or incapable of using quad cores...is beyond patronising. There are programs that use quad core cpus. Games will become more quad core aware, consumer programs are using more cpu power all the time...more ram...more gpu power...there's never enough 'power'.

Now's the time to give the iMac a design shake and put this crap behind us. Apple have had time to consolidate on the Intel platform. Time to make with the choice, make with the performance and make with the power and performance and price cut that the Intel line of cpus afford.

Apple like to boast about alot of things, OS, iPhone, marketshare...cheaper prices on the iPod, iPhone and OS side. About time to give the mainstream Mac some love. Done with the 'lick of paint' upgrades already.

In short? It's about bloody time for quad cores! At a cheaper, fairer price.

Lemon Bon Bon.

You know, for a company that specializes in the video-graphics market, you'd think that they would offer top-of-the-line GPUs...

Edit: On another note, Lemon Bon Bon makes a good point however what they could even do is slowly offer Quad-core onto the the market. Drop the prices of the exisiting C2D iMacs and add two or more C2Q. Could that work?

You know. Only people beyond redemption to the Apple 'cause' could lay claim that another side grade of core-duo with low end gpu to go would be acceptable because no one else knows what 'Apple buyers want' (like they, themselves are an expert on the matter...) It's beyond kool-aid.

There are quad-core i7 class options available now. Both in terms of desktop and laptop. It's simply not acceptable to be paying more, twice as much more for twice less the performance on the PC side. YEesh. Going intel was supposed to stop that PPC 'cpu lag' crap. Now we're getting it from Apple themselves. They seem to paint themselves into a corner. Offering an expensive laptop class cpu in a desktop machine when there are cheaper, more powerful options out there.

Saying duos are ok because aunty alice is ignorant or incapable of using quad cores...is beyond patronising. There are programs that use quad core cpus. Games will become more quad core aware, consumer programs are using more cpu power all the time...more ram...more gpu power...there's never enough 'power'.

Now's the time to give the iMac a design shake and put this crap behind us. Apple have had time to consolidate on the Intel platform. Time to make with the choice, make with the performance and make with the power and performance and price cut that the Intel line of cpus afford.

Apple like to boast about alot of things, OS, iPhone, marketshare...cheaper prices on the iPod, iPhone and OS side. About time to give the mainstream Mac some love. Done with the 'lick of paint' upgrades already.

In short? It's about bloody time for quad cores! At a cheaper, fairer price.

Lemon Bon Bon.

First of all, "quad core equal twice the performance of dual core" simply isn't true. It's not true in absolute terms, and it certainly isn't true once you start comparing specific chip sets and graphics options.

Secondly, what you're saying is that there are a lot of current generation iMac users that are sitting in front of their machines saying "Damn! This thing is too slow. Apple needs to make a much faster machine!"

It doesn't require any koolaid to notice that processor capacity is advancing faster than software can take advantage of it. Yes, I like bigger drives and more ram because those things actually make a bigger difference in perceived performance, much more so than always having to have the latest and greatest CPU.

Bigger discs because people keep accumulating more crap on their computers, and more ram because discs are still slow compared to ram. You'll notice neither of those things have any bearing on the intensity of the applications being run; improvements there do exactly what they would have done two or three years ago.

I think it's striking that for all the fulminating about Apple robbing its customers, no one is really citing instances where a quad core chip would actually enhance their day to day computing. Yes, if I'm doing batch video transcoding, I will welcome the additional power, and for 3D modeling, and few other edge cases.

It's not about grandma not being sophisticated enough, it's about what for what we can most likely assume the vast majority of people are using their computers.

I would welcome more powerful chips in the new iMacs; I think its inevitable that they will include such. I'm not going to get terribly excited about some perceived inadequacy compared to my PC using friends, if my computer seems to be doing what their computer is doing at pretty much the same speed.

Now, if my PC using friends can show me noticeable improvements in day to day tasks, or if I intend to use my computer in such a way that I can bog down whatever CPU its using, then, sure, bring on the new hotness. I just don't care about abstract comparisons.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

I think it's striking that for all the fulminating about Apple robbing its customers, no one is really citing instances where a quad core chip would actually enhance their day to day computing. Yes, if I'm doing batch video transcoding, I will welcome the additional power, and for 3D modeling, and few other edge cases.

It's not about grandma not being sophisticated enough, it's about what for what we can most likely assume the vast majority of people are using their computers.

I would welcome more powerful chips in the new iMacs; I think its inevitable that they will include such. I'm not going to get terribly excited about some perceived inadequacy compared to my PC using friends, if my computer seems to be doing what their computer is doing at pretty much the same speed.

Now, if my PC using friends can show me noticeable improvements in day to day tasks, or if I intend to use my computer in such a way that I can bog down whatever CPU its using, then, sure, bring on the new hotness. I just don't care about abstract comparisons.

While we could argue about the effectiveness of low-clocked quad cores versus high-clocked dual cores, the real boost provided by hyperthreading and turbo mode, they merely obscure the fundamental problem: Intel sells high performance parts at reasonable prices, but Apple won't let us have them.

Let's face reality here. Most people would be well served by a Mac mini or 3 year old iMac. The only way any computer company is going to make sales is by convincing us we want something new, whether we need it or not. Holding back new technology is not a very good strategy for encouraging unnecessary purchases and is a terrible strategy in the segment of the market that actually benefits from higher performance.

Apple has decided they can do better offering mostly aesthetic changes rather than technical ones. That's their choice, but it's very frustrating to knowledgeable buyers.

You know. Only people beyond redemption to the Apple 'cause' could lay claim that another side grade of core-duo with low end gpu to go would be acceptable because no one else knows what 'Apple buyers want' (like they, themselves are an expert on the matter...) It's beyond kool-aid.

There are quad-core i7 class options available now. Both in terms of desktop and laptop. It's simply not acceptable to be paying more, twice as much more for twice less the performance on the PC side. YEesh. Going intel was supposed to stop that PPC 'cpu lag' crap. Now we're getting it from Apple themselves. They seem to paint themselves into a corner. Offering an expensive laptop class cpu in a desktop machine when there are cheaper, more powerful options out there.

Saying duos are ok because aunty alice is ignorant or incapable of using quad cores...is beyond patronising. There are programs that use quad core cpus. Games will become more quad core aware, consumer programs are using more cpu power all the time...more ram...more gpu power...there's never enough 'power'.

Now's the time to give the iMac a design shake and put this crap behind us. Apple have had time to consolidate on the Intel platform. Time to make with the choice, make with the performance and make with the power and performance and price cut that the Intel line of cpus afford.

Apple like to boast about alot of things, OS, iPhone, marketshare...cheaper prices on the iPod, iPhone and OS side. About time to give the mainstream Mac some love. Done with the 'lick of paint' upgrades already.

In short? It's about bloody time for quad cores! At a cheaper, fairer price.

Lemon Bon Bon.

I'm not sure why you quoted me. I've been strongly pro-quad core since before the last, incredibly lame iMac revision. Like you I've been calling for real desktop chips in the Mac lineup for years. I want good performance per dollar. Performance per watt is nice, but far less important.

I replaced a dual 2.7 G5 tower (energy pig) with the only machine I could afford at the time, a 2009 mini and I couldn't see any change on my electricity bill. Compared with winter heating and summer air conditioning requirements, the electricity used by my computer is just a drop in the bucket.

I saw the ad for the HP with the i7 and it's impressive how fast they move to update their components. If I'm not mistaken, it's it basically an Intel motherboard + the usual components (HD, RAM, etc)?

Apple puts a lot more engineering into each revision and thus we wait 6 months or longer between updates. By the time we are due for an update, our PC buddies are sailing away on much faster and cheaper hardware. Then we get our update and for a while, we are binary kings.

That's not to say Apple won't speed up their update cycle. But I think it will require one magical idea... MODULARITY.

Granted, Apple will always want to engineer a complete solution, but if Intel would ever move strongly in this direction, we would probably see faster and cheaper updates, as well as computers that people use for longer periods. A hobbyist market would undoubtedly unfold as well.

But I still would be open for disruptive technology advances that rapidly left me behind. Modularity can only go so far. It might be that for a long while, the best we'll see out of Cupertino is twice a year upgrades.

While we could argue about the effectiveness of low-clocked quad cores versus high-clocked dual cores, the real boost provided by hyperthreading and turbo mode, they merely obscure the fundamental problem: Intel sells high performance parts at reasonable prices, but Apple won't let us have them.

Let's face reality here. Most people would be well served by a Mac mini or 3 year old iMac. The only way any computer company is going to make sales is by convincing us we want something new, whether we need it or not. Holding back new technology is not a very good strategy for encouraging unnecessary purchases and is a terrible strategy in the segment of the market that actually benefits from higher performance.

Apple has decided they can do better offering mostly aesthetic changes rather than technical ones. That's their choice, but it's very frustrating to knowledgeable buyers.

Well, the marketing angle is certainly reasonable, but we don't really know that the next iMac refresh is going to be purely cosmetic.

It will almost certainly feature some kind of CPU boost, plus the usual upticks in ram and hard drive space, plus possible some hardware revisions we don't know about.

Again, the value proposition for a potential buyer is a whole bunch of interrelated elements, not just "does it have the latest CPU", which I submit is fairly low on the list.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

.....
I think it's striking that for all the fulminating about Apple robbing its customers, no one is really citing instances where a quad core chip would actually enhance their day to day computing. Yes, if I'm doing batch video transcoding, I will welcome the additional power, and for 3D modeling, and few other edge cases.
....

VM Ware. Two cores for the host and two for the guest. *Much* faster and crisper performance than on a dual core machine which can only devote one core for the host and one for the guest.

Aside from that, look at the processes that run in the background, at least for me: Time Machine and mobile me sync. I'm sure others have even more apps running in the back ground. More cores help there. Dual core may be fine now, but I expect more processes to run in the background in the future. Not less.

Even average users transcode by the way. Shoot some video, edit it and then upload to You Tube with iMovie. There's a transcoding step in there that is very time consuming. 10 minutes of video that my son and I shot took 45 minutes to transcode before it could be uploaded. And that was on a 2.6 ghz C2D iMac. That's not 'pro' work but it still takes a while.

Also what's the advantage of thinner for the consumer? How many users sit around and say 'I wish my iMac was a half inch thinner'?

Well, the marketing angle is certainly reasonable, but we don't really know that the next iMac refresh is going to be purely cosmetic.

It will almost certainly feature some kind of CPU boost, plus the usual upticks in ram and hard drive space, plus possible some hardware revisions we don't know about.

Again, the value proposition for a potential buyer is a whole bunch of interrelated elements, not just "does it have the latest CPU", which I submit is fairly low on the list.

Actually I don't think we'll see any significant changes in base Ram or Hard drive space. Possibly a larger base hard drive, but the base iMac already comes with 4 GB, which given the lower memory requirements of OS X, is plenty for the vast majority. You can already upgrade it to 8GB for those running VM applications, or memory-centric applications. The hard drive already has an option for up to 1 TB of storage. Possibly high capacity SSD? That would be a nice perk.

Video hardware tends to get outdated rather quickly, so I could see yet another bump to that, and possibly a new CPU (I can only hope as the core-2 duo is getting rather dated). Perhaps a BD-Rom.

Apple has had a very easy 3 years due to Windows Vista, and the surge in interest due to iPhone/iPod Touch. Windows 7 will change that somewhat. I can see W7 being another game changer. Face it, with 90% market share, even a mediocre Microsoft product can have a huge impact on everyone else in the industry. I would not call Windows 7 mediocre. Not revolutionary, but certainly an improvement over Vista. It already has good buzz in IT circles which means the home user isn't far behind.

VM Ware. Two cores for the host and two for the guest. *Much* faster and crisper performance than on a dual core machine which can only devote one core for the host and one for the guest.

Aside from that, look at the processes that run in the background, at least for me: Time Machine and mobile me sync. I'm sure others have even more apps running in the back ground. More cores help there. Dual core may be fine now, but I expect more processes to run in the background in the future. Not less.

Even average users transcode by the way. Shoot some video, edit it and then upload to You Tube with iMovie. There's a transcoding step in there that is very time consuming. 10 minutes of video that my son and I shot took 45 minutes to transcode before it could be uploaded. And that was on a 2.6 ghz C2D iMac. That's not 'pro' work but it still takes a while.

Also what's the advantage of thinner for the consumer? How many users sit around and say 'I wish my iMac was a half inch thinner'?

Those are not good examples. Neither Time Machine, or MobileMe takes up any significant CPU cycles when it's not active. You actually have far more threads than those running in the background. Those are user threads, not system threads, but even then, a typical Mac will only utilize 1-2% for all user and system threads combined during idle times. Time Machine has more of a bottleneck with the storage bandwidth, not CPU load. Quad won't change that significantly. I think most will agree that it's the power users that would see the most benefit. Users who encode video, play CPU intensive games or work with CPU intensive apps like Adobe's suite, Virtual Machine software, etc. Granted a typical user may not need these things on a daily basis, but a power user would. It also extends the useful life of a Mac when you have more powerful hardware to begin with.

I have to agree on the width issue though. I think this single minded distraction with being thin is wasted on a desktop. Certainly not for a laptop, but I would rather see a 'current' mac rather than shaving another 10 mm from the width of a desktop unit that I never see the edge or the back of for that matter.

Those are not good examples. Neither Time Machine, or MobileMe takes up any significant CPU cycles ...

You're missing the point. These are background processes that exist now that didn't exist two years ago. They don't strain the machines of today but who knows what other processes we'll run in the background two years from now.

And Vm Ware is a resource intensive app. It can bring my MBP to its knees.

You're missing the point. These are background processes that exist now that didn't exist two years ago. They don't strain the machines of today but who knows what other processes we'll run in the background two years from now.

And Vm Ware is a resource intensive app. It can bring my MBP to its knees.

Background processes will never clobber a CPU. This isn't Microsoft we're talking about here, but Apple. It's the hard hitting apps that will need quad, not minor maintenance threads, and squatter threads that activate every 15 minutes to perform some mundane task.

I already mentioned VMWare as a heavy hitter. I run my work "XP" desktop image on my 3.06 iMac. It would very much benefit from more cores from my first hand experience. I would VERY much welcome a quad-core choice for that reason.

Quote:
How about Apple is the only company that can charge over $1,000 for a dual core laptop on a stick and call it a desktop?

The quad core iMac has been a desire since Intel released the QX6700 back in November 2006.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lemon Bon Bon.

An interesting quote from macrumors where a similar debate is taking place.

Blunt. But true.

Lemon Bon Bon.

You really should avoid generalizations. Core-2 is far more common in Notebooks than quad, and the price for comparable parts from other manufacturers is right in line with Apple's for similar quality hardware. Of course none of these have the 20" or 24" inch screen and most won't offer the larger storage options or the faster core-2 that iMac has, but you get the idea.

Well, the marketing angle is certainly reasonable, but we don't really know that the next iMac refresh is going to be purely cosmetic.

I think what most people here are saying is that the next iMac had damn well be more than a cosmetic upgrade. As much as Apple would like to you can't market around the facts to the majority of the people.

Quote:

It will almost certainly feature some kind of CPU boost, plus the usual upticks in ram and hard drive space, plus possible some hardware revisions we don't know about.

Which would not be good enough. In my case it would force me to not reccomend the iMac to anyone.

Quote:

Again, the value proposition for a potential buyer is a whole bunch of interrelated elements, not just "does it have the latest CPU", which I submit is fairly low on the list.

Then simply put you are wrong. The CPU is the biggest shortcoming in the iMac and I would put forth is the most important element on the list that informed shoppers use. An i7 derived or like processor is really what Snow Leopard was built for.

Except for the possibility on the lowest end machines I can't see dual core in Apples machines as being even remotely viable for leveraging SL. SL and GCD are meant to exploit highly parallel machines supporting many threads. Without quad cores and more the ability to leverage those new features is extremely limited. Frankly the development effort that went into SL indicates that Apple sees these parallel machines as it's near term future. So if you want to buy into this new world order you need to expect a minimal of 4 hardware threads.

I know! I was just talking to my brother, and he was all like, "I hear they might be bringing out new iMacs, but whither quad core? I am hungry."

Seriously though, does anyone outside of gear hounds think in terms of "yesterday's technology", especially when it comes to chip sets?

Once upon a time there might have been some awareness of clock speed, but that's just because Intel was flogging same as a metric of awesomeness. Number of cores are a much harder thing to drive into the public consciousness, partly because no one much knows what that even means, and because "4 instead of 2" doesn't have quite the impact of "3GHz overclocked extreme!"

I think the iPhone is a great example of where things are headed, if they're not already there: people react to the entire device, and don't know or care what's inside. In the case of the iPhone, there was a noticeable speed up of system processes in the move from 3G to 3Gs, so people took note of that, still without caring what, exactly, had been done to the internals to make that happen.

Since the move from 2 to 4 cores is not going to have anything like that impact on the day to day use of a desktop or laptop computer, most people really have no reason to care.

What, exactly, are the folks in this thread proposing the impact of quad core is going to be on 95% of what people do with their computers? Is Firefox going to load pages 4 times as fast? Is Office going to make letters appear on the screen before you type them? Will your emails fly off your computer like missiles? Will your music sound better?

For the few that are doing genuinely processor intensive things like batch processing media or editing HD movies or doing 3D animation work, then, yes, you would probably be advised to seek the latest and greatest. But that's the few, a fact that hasn't been lost on Apple.

I can't speak for the mobile Core i7, but I have a tower that I built with a Core i7 920 processor with the X58 chipset, and I can tell you that the Core i7 line is significantly more responsive than the non-Core i7 quad cores, which were marginally better than the dual cores. The jump from a dual core to a Core i7 would be a significant speed improvement all around. I'm completely aware that some applications don't take advantage of the quad cores and actually have shown to take a performance hit in the previous generation quad cores, but I'm telling you that the Core i7 is a different beast. Previously, you'd be willing to save a few bucks and look at AMD's offerings, but the Core i7 is so much better, AMD simply has no answer. That's the difference.

On top of that, a fast GPU like a 275 GTX, with Snow Leopard's OpenCL, should result in a machine that would leave the current gen in the dust.

Besides, it's not what the public needs, it's what the public wants. GM built cars for years based on what they thought the public needed, instead of what they wanted. Do you see where they are today?

I can't speak for the mobile Core i7, but I have a tower that I built with a Core i7 920 processor with the X58 chipset, and I can tell you that the Core i7 line is significantly more responsive than the non-Core i7 quad cores, which were marginally better than the dual cores. The jump from a dual core to a Core i7 would be a significant speed improvement all around. I'm completely aware that some applications don't take advantage of the quad cores and actually have shown to take a performance hit in the previous generation quad cores, but I'm telling you that the Core i7 is a different beast. Previously, you'd be willing to save a few bucks and look at AMD's offerings, but the Core i7 is so much better, AMD simply has no answer. That's the difference.

On top of that, a fast GPU like a 275 GTX, with Snow Leopard's OpenCL, should result in a machine that would leave the current gen in the dust.

Besides, it's not what the public needs, it's what the public wants. GM built cars for years based on what they thought the public needed, instead of what they wanted. Do you see where they are today?

You forgot to mention the fact that the quads are substantially cheaper. They certainly won't hurt the 'I don't care' majority, but they will certainly help the "I Want" minority a great deal.

Guys, this endless processor debate is getting stale. Not to mention it's likely a lot of worry over nothing.

If Apple does go with 24" and 27" models, it goes without saying that the 27" is going to have a higher tolerance for heat. So the Core2 chips could be the 2 lower end configs, with the higher end config going Quad.

Of more far interest is whether we get USB3, the faster Firewire or easier hard drive upgrades.

I think what most people here are saying is that the next iMac had damn well be more than a cosmetic upgrade. As much as Apple would like to you can't market around the facts to the majority of the people.

Which would not be good enough. In my case it would force me to not reccomend the iMac to anyone.

Then simply put you are wrong. The CPU is the biggest shortcoming in the iMac and I would put forth is the most important element on the list that informed shoppers use. An i7 derived or like processor is really what Snow Leopard was built for.

Except for the possibility on the lowest end machines I can't see dual core in Apples machines as being even remotely viable for leveraging SL. SL and GCD are meant to exploit highly parallel machines supporting many threads. Without quad cores and more the ability to leverage those new features is extremely limited. Frankly the development effort that went into SL indicates that Apple sees these parallel machines as it's near term future. So if you want to buy into this new world order you need to expect a minimal of 4 hardware threads.

Dave

Then I guess we disagree that what you're defining as an "informed shopper" makes up any substantial part of the potential iMac market. I don't disagree with the SL is there, why not take advantage? argument, but the idea that the average computer shopper is studying the box for info on number of cores is simply untrue, IMO.

I doubt the average computer shopper has the faintest idea what a "core" is. And don't tell me I'm being patronizing, I know a lot of people and I know a lot of computer users. Self regarding geeks, for whom a tech savvy is a mark of character tend to wildly overestimate the interest and expertise in the internals of computers among the general public.

I work at a very large high school, and I doubt if 1% of the faculty could even tell you what version of their operating system they're running, much less any particulars of the hardware. Among my perfectly smart but non-geekish friends, even the effort to bring them up to speed on price vs. hardware stuff makes their eyes glaze over.

I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, so it's not like this is some kind of tech benighted backwater, either. Of course there are people who care. They are a slim fraction of people who buy computers for their homes.

They spoke of the sayings and doings of their commander, the grand duke, and told stories of his kindness and irascibility.

THAT causes a potential MacPro buyer to get a Dell for much less money. All fair and good that many think Apple has hit a winner with making iMac useless for anything above using Firefox.

Giant & obese Mac Pro

---- big gap ---- <<Dell, HP, Acer, etc

Weedy skinny iMac

depends on which buyer you're talking about. If you're talking about the guy who just needs/wants a tower for expandability you're right. Apple, for better or for worse, positioned themself to make their only tower very clearly a workstation/dev class machine. On *that* field apple is priced competitively.

Put another way, it's not that the mac pro is expensive, it's that apple doesn't have a cheap tower that's the problem (which, btw, is true of their laptops too to some extent).

Of course there are people who care. They are a slim fraction of people who buy computers for their homes.

Exactly so, but this group is hugely over-represented in forums like this, which leads many to believe that the real world is being accurately reflected in these discussions. Technical people need to understand that they are but a tiny minority of the people who buy computers, and that their priorities are not the same as the rest of the universe of users.

Put down the bottle pleez. So "Pros" only use iMacs now and not PCs?????
Stop embarrassing yourself.

If you read the melgross post carefully, nowhere does he say "Pros" only use iMacs now and not PCs" ... Why do you insist on putting your words into other people's mouths? Can you not make a point without misquoting, and btw, you do it often enough it can't be unintentional.

Blowing out another person's candle does not make our candle burn brighter - author unknown